My biggest pet peeve on electrical stuff for aquariums

[chipmaker]

I like the power strips with timers etc, and its almost a given you need some sort of timer...however the companies just do not allow sufficient room when they design these power strips with or without timers.........A large portion of whats used today utilizes wal warts.........and all it takes is one wal wart in a power strip and it covers up or makes quite a few other recepticles in the strip unuseable, which leads to having to use adapters to gain height or add a plugin at a different angle etc or short cords etc to plug in what you want to use. Anyone else run into this with their setups?

 

[wrz0170]

I'm in the process of trying to figure out my power setup. You are correct. The companies who design these things are not taking timers into account. I think most people have the need for at least 3 timers. Timers are space hogs. There are some strips that will fit wide adapters. Not sure if they can take on three timers.
I am curious as to some of the ways some got around this dilemma? I could use some ideas!

 

[zman1]

And I thought you were going to say the over priced items for the niche market by your title.
Look at Lowes... I was just there throwing more money away today and noticed their power strips on an end cap. I think they had 36" 48" and 60" . The price for the 48" I believe was in the area of $40, don't remember how many outlets, but you could plug timers between them.

 

[kpatrick]

Chipmaker,
I agree, I always find myself using the last recepticle for my timers or else they block several other recepticles.

 

[funkyman]

They make power strips 5 feet long?? Really?? :scared:

 

[chipmaker]

I have a power strip 72" in length, and belive it or not, it was cut down from one that went clear across a 12 foot test bench.......It has the recepticles spaced approximately 4 or 5 inches apart, sufficient for a wal wart to plug into and not tie up the nect recepticle, BUT who wants a 6 foot long power strip behind a setup when all you need is maybe 5 or 6 recepticles. The coral life timers etc all look great, and are perfectly functional, "IF" you do not use any wal warts in them.....their fine if you use a standard plug, other than that they are a joke for most uses......Think about it, what would it cost to space the recepticles on the corallife timers / powerstrips apart a few inches more and also to orientate them 90 deg from how they are made....Probably would not add a dollar or two to the overall cost, and look what yu would save by not having a tangled up mess of short cords and adpaters so you can hook every thing up. Nothing I hate worse than a mumble jumble afair of cords, adapters, and wal warts, that looks like a dogs breakfast no matter how you try and arrage it...........and I do not relish excessive cord lengths tucked up or pushed under a couch/ stand etc to hide them. Even on my small 2 gal pico, its a nightmare with walwarts and cords and adapters to get everything powered up.....

 

[benter]

Heres my solution.!!! Made my own control box, manual, off, automatic, for everything..Ran all of the electrical timing off of one plug in timer, and I used solid state timers for all the other Timing sequences...NO PLUGS !!!! Oh yeah the FTS switches are for the fans in the canopy....Sometimes you have to improvise...

 

[marvida]

Here's what I did. There's plenty of room & it's GFCI protected.

 

[zman1]

Originally Posted by MarVida
Here's what I did. There's plenty of room & it's GFCI protected.

Nice and clean -- Nice job.
Did you use 12/2 (w/ground) NM-b or run separate 12 gauge wire? Romex would be hard to manipulate that close. You would still have issues using Wal-Mart timers though as the outlrt are close.
Here is my Cheap Doctrine version. Still flubbed it and had to use a power strip to plug the two tank light timers in. Now I have three unused receptacles on the light section.

 

[marvida]

You're right there is not room to put the timers next to each other. The frame is 1x3 & 1x2. there are no boxes used. I ran separate 12 gauge. The GFCI covers all the plugs with the switch above each plug controlling that plug. The switch above the GFCI is a master and will kill the whole thing. I got the idea off of another forum & tweaked it a bit.

 

[marvida]

One word of caution on using a setup such as mine. If all on your equipment is controlled through a panel that is protected by one GFCI, you may experience a disaster if the switch is tripped. It's always a good idea to have at least 1/2 of the switches controlled by a different GFCI. I am going to upgrade my setup in the near future with this in mind. Right now I have a powerhead running off of a separate power source.

 

[woodymdt]

Originally Posted by Benter
Heres my solution.!!! Made my own control box, manual, off, automatic, for everything..Ran all of the electrical timing off of one plug in timer, and I used solid state timers for all the other Timing sequences...NO PLUGS !!!! Oh yeah the FTS switches are for the fans in the canopy....Sometimes you have to improvise...

Now that's pretty impressive. Do you have any other pictures or design drawings for it?
I'd be interested in making something like that for all my plugs and accessories.

 

[jimnlee]

My company makes a product that might actually be helpful to you with this issue. It is called (believe it or not) a PowerSquid. You can get it in the hardware department of Walmart or Target also available in designer colors at Bed Bath & beyond and Staples. They cost between 10-20 bucks and are very cool. I will attempt to attach a pic so you can see one. They are basically a multiple outlet strip, but the outlets are on individual cords between 6 and 10 inches long.

 

[chipmaker]

Originally Posted by jimnlee
My company makes a product that might actually be helpful to you with this issue. It is called (believe it or not) a PowerSquid. You can get it in the hardware department of Walmart or Target also available in designer colors at Bed Bath & beyond and Staples. They cost between 10-20 bucks and are very cool. I will attempt to attach a pic so you can see one. They are basically a multiple outlet strip, but the outlets are on individual cords between 6 and 10 inches long.
I like the multi outlet strip......I have one multi outlet strip I use for my generator, so I can't tie it up on my tank setup, and when I went to buy more of them I almost fell over for what they wanted for one in Lowes and HOme Depot......Better than $25.00 for a cord 1' long with 3 molded in recepticles......and I belive with a one piece molded plug as such you would still be hampered for sufficient room in some cases.....I will have to check out the places you mentioned for the aboce device..........at least with each receptile on a seperate pigtail you would definately have sufficient room.
Making a setup with individual switches and duplex pecepticles would not be an option in the living room...my wife would kill me, as she hates seeing even the timer and power strips........but I did give that concept some serious thought, even to cutting out the paneling and installing it in the wall.......which she also promptly shot down, as it would limit her in her furniture rearranging, which she seems to do about once a month.....not that she is likely to move the tank, but there may be someday she wants it somewhere else.

 

[daveb]

Everyone feels that way I am sure. But actually it is not very difficult to make your own power strips to the specs you need them to be.... or an electrical panel of sorts with timers and switches to control everything the way you want to. A piece of paper, a pencil and a limited ability to draw a simple schematic of what you want. Then put it together with some plywood and the electrical hardware necessary..

 

[zman1]

Originally Posted by chipmaker
would not be an option in the living room...my wife would kill me, as she hates seeing even the timer and power strips........

Know what you mean.. The olny place I can have a tank is in the basement. Which is fine with me as the harware setup doesn't have to look "prettty". Don't get me wrong she enjoys looking at it and helps while I am out of town, but just doesn't want it up stairs. So it becomes my vacation retreat to go in the basement.

 

[bkc978]

Coralife makes 2 types of outlet strips with timers built into them
- the single timer model has one set of outlets that are on (for day lights) and an opposing set of outlets that automatically come on when the day ones turn off (for lunar lights)
- the dual timer model has the same as above, and then a timer on the opposite end that allows you to turn a 3 set of outlets on/off in 15-minutees (or longer) intervals. This can be use for white lights to come on an hour after the actinic come on (put actinic on the 'day' set so the alternate with lunar) or you can use them as wavemakers by putting powerheads on them

 

[dr. evil]

Funky Man my EVIL twin

 

[chipmaker]

Yes, but the dual timer strips by coralife stil has the problems with being able to plug in wal warts without making adjourning recepticles unuseable.

 

[lennon]

Originally Posted by zman1
Know what you mean.. The olny place I can have a tank is in the basement. Which is fine with me as the harware setup doesn't have to look "prettty". Don't get me wrong she enjoys looking at it and helps while I am out of town, but just doesn't want it up stairs. So it becomes my vacation retreat to go in the basement.

Tanks are so beautiful. My husband loves them but I am going to do the maintenance when I start one. I feel it is a beautiful focal point in a livingroom or anywhere for that matter. Do you have tons of cords or something exposed? no canopy?